“A gentleman is someone who never hurts anyone’s feelings unintentionally.” -Oscar Wilde
Pardon my vocabulary, but BS. Do you know how long it took me to realize I had actually hurt someone unintentionally? Quite some time and a series of unfortunate events. Honestly, the only reason I had this realization was that I was hurt by someone else unintentionally. So, let me rephrase Mr. Wilde’s statement, “A gentleman/lady is someone who purposely takes the time to reflect and more so apologize to the person who was unintentionally hurt.”
With this being said, let me introduce you to the story of the time I apologized for unintentionally hurting someone. A couple months ago, I was doing some introspection in my life and I had this moment of clarity, in which I realized I had not closed a chapter in my life. Truth be told, I think most of us have a lot of chapters in our lives on hold. These are the chapters that we hold dearly in our hearts and cannot seem to let go. This could have a million reasons for being, but in my case, it was a matter of timing and realizing that what I did was hurt someone. I needed to grow, get hurt, and learn in order to be able to apologize to this person. In the process, I picked up my notebook and wrote some notes in the span of a few days, until I was ready to compose my so much needed apology. Originally, my plan was to actually talk to the person, but that was not doable and I had to text my apology. As I was typing in the commodity of my home, I assumed that I was never going to get a response back. In reality, this apology was as much for the person as it was for myself. At the time it did not even matter if the person replied as long as I apologized. To my surprise the person did reply and it read something like this, “I know why you did what you did…I now understand. It took me several months to understand, but I forgive you. I just have one request, forget I exist.”
Goddamn, a dagger to the heart. Was the response what I was expecting if ever one was delivered? Yes, because maybe I did deserve that. But you know what, I did my part and I hope. Just as I did this, the person I hurt will get some type of closure –because I still care about the person, even after the pain I caused. It is not my place to say this person’s reaction was not the right one because I understand the pain I must have caused. Now –now I do understand and I am willing to honor the request.
The fact that it took a while to realize I hurt someone unintentionally and still have the “balls” to apologize makes me more of a lady than Mr. Wilde will ever realize. Deep down a lot of us are waiting for an apology from someone else, but just as we are other people are waiting for our apology as well. The person I have been talking about will not read this because I have made myself invisible just to honor the request, but at least you (whoever you are) read me. I hope this gives you an opportunity to make amends with others as well as with yourself.
